OBLIVION

With the exception of his amazing cameo in Tropic Thunder, and the excellent Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise has sailed through some stinkers in recent years. Never mind that he gives it his all, even the Cruise charisma couldn’t resuscitate the dreadful likes of Knight And Day.

Set in a stifling future on a decimated Earth, Oblivion brings to mind the glory days of Minority Report, and for the most part it’s just as easy to love. It’s a terrific space thriller filled with jawdropping visuals, and Andrea Riseborough.

In the late 21st century, Earth was invaded by creatures who destroyed the moon, leading to the near destruction of the planet. Mankind won, but the entire human race was evacuated to a new home called Triton.

Jack Harper (Cruise) and his wife Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are in their last fortnight as upmarket janitors; keeping an eye on the flying droids that patrol the Earth and the vast machines turning sea water into power. Jack goes out to fix the flyers when they break, while Victoria stays in the tower as his eyes and ears, wearing an assortment of outfits that wouldn’t look out of place in a Gerry Anderson show.

Overseen by their contact on Triton, Sally (Melissa Leo, sweetly Southern and all the more unnerving for it), they are indeed an ‘effective team’.

Victoria is thrilled to be joining their fellow man on Triton; Jack can’t let go of Earth. He’s even built a little log cabin and stocked it with whatever trinkets he can find – a space version of Ariel’s hoard in The Little Mermaid. When the woman he has been dreaming about (Olga Kurylenko) turns up in a crashed spaceship, Jack’s understanding of reality takes as much of a hit as one of the droids.

Director Joseph Kosinski proved that he was a dab hand with CGI on the eye-wateringly pretty Tron: Legacy, but his neat trick for Oblivion is using real locations. Who knew Iceland was so gorgeous and so barren? It comes to a point when you don’t know whether what you’re seeing is real or wizardry, which underpins Jack’s own uncertainty.

I could quite happily have spent more time flying around Earth with Jack before going back to his concrete tower for some dinner and flirting with Victoria, because where it all comes a bit unstuck is when the actual thriller element starts, as Jack comes into contact with some strange humans and finds out more about what is happening on Earth.

Morgan Freeman unleashes extreme levels of ham as their leader, and for a while everything goes a bit silly. Why is it mandatory for post-apocalyptic mankind to dress as a tribute to Mad Max? And when those suspiciously familiar-looking flying droids start firing lasers, you might as well rebrand the whole film Brawl-E.

But Oblivion is great fun, and an incredibly convincing vision of a dystopian future. Riseborough is enchanting, although Kurylenko gets little to do other than pout and model some extremely flattering jumpsuits. But Cruise’s charisma carries him through. The characters might have little to them, but really, Oblivion’s biggest star is that gorgeous, destroyed Earth.